Death Comes to a Retreat (Book 4 Molly Masters Mysteries) Read online

  She smiled. “That sums it up pretty well. How do you know Katherine?”

  “We had a mutual friend in common. Allison Kenyon.”

  Her face fell. “Allison. Yes, I heard about her death. I’m so sorry.”

  “So am I.” To test her reaction, I said, “I guess you know how it feels to have someone you care about murdered.”

  She looked as though she might be holding her breath, but she said nothing. Maybe it was her doll-like features combined with her youth, but I felt as though I were about to badger a child. Whatever her relationship may or may not have been with Allison’s late ex-husband, she hadn’t killed Allison.

  “I’m sorry, Cindy.” I pushed back my chair, expecting her to ask me to leave immediately. “The truth is, I’m trying to find out who killed Allison Kenyon. I came here to ask you what you knew about Richard Kenyon, on the chance that his murder and hers were related. I fed Katherine a line of baloney so I could meet with you under false pretenses.”

  “Shh.” She made a downward-pushing gesture to indicate for me to keep my voice down. “There are three of Katherine’s students in here.” I automatically glanced around, which was stupid because I certainly wouldn’t know her students if I saw them, but I did spot the officer seated in the corner of the far wall. Cindy raised her eyebrows and looked at me as if enthralled. “You’re a private investigator?” she whispered.

  “No, but at the moment, I’m a suspect.”

  Cindy had grown tense. “You didn’t do it, did you?”

  “No,” I answered a bit more harshly than I’d intended. “If I’d killed her, I wouldn’t be trying to figure out who did.”

  “No, I guess you wouldn’t.”

  “Were you Richard Kenyon’s girlfriend?”

  “I wouldn’t say…We dated for a while when he had separated from his wife. That was long over by the time of his death.”

  “Really? I’d heard you were living together.”

  “Only briefly, and before I knew…I’d already moved out before the robber killed him. Richard told me he was divorced, but then, just when he’d convinced me to move in, I got a call from his wife. That was the end of my relationship with Richard.”

  “What did she say to you?”

  “She thought I was somebody else at first, which was a big clue that I wasn’t Richard’s only girlfriend.”

  “You mean, she called you by someone else’s name?”

  “Yes. That particular conversation is burned into my memory. Allison sounded totally smashed, slurring her words and everything. She said, ‘He’ll do it to you, too, Celia. Don’t kid yourself.’”

  Allison must have meant Richard would beat her, too, but I asked, “Do you know what she meant by that?”

  “I assumed she meant he’d cheat on me, too.”

  “Did you ask Richard about Celia?”

  She grimaced and nodded. “He said he didn’t know anybody by that name, and I—”

  Just then a large black Labrador came galloping up the stairs, an apron-clad employee in pursuit yelling, “Hey! No dogs!” Not surprisingly, the dog charged ahead, massive tail whapping cups off tables while patrons scrambled to steady them. The oblivious, happy beast charged to a table one over from ours, where a young man with droopy eyelids, laughed and said in a stoned-out drawl, “Hey, Toby! How’d you get loose, dude?”

  The employee gave one glance at the policeman, who stood up and asked the man, “Is that your dog?”

  “Yeah.” He grabbed the red bandanna that served as a collar and got up on wobbly legs. “Er, I mean no. I’ll take him outside and see if I can find his owner.”

  The officer met my eyes as the dog and his immature owner left. I smiled and said, “Hi.”

  “Afternoon, Ms. Masters,” he murmured as he followed the others down the stairs.

  “Wow. He even knew your name,” Cindy commented casually.

  “He buys a lot of my greeting cards.” It sounded as if Allison knew Celia and Richard were having an affair. That had to have been a source of friction between the two women. “I’m trying to find out if Katherine Lindstrom could have been involved in Allison’s death. Or perhaps even in Richard’s. What do you think?”

  Cindy was leaning back in her chair, studying my features. She seemed to be mulling whether or not to answer.

  I went on, “I realize you have nothing to gain by helping me, but could you anyway?”

  She raised an eyebrow and said, “Oh, I wouldn’t say I had ‘nothing to gain,’ exactly. Katherine is a bear to work for, and nothing would please me more than seeing her get busted.”

  “How so?”

  She furrowed her brow. “She set me up with Richard. She engineered our meeting each other, and she lied to me about his marital status. She’d asked him to come to her office to speak to her about something, then she claimed to have something pressing come up and sent me to keep him company till she could get free. Then she called and said she couldn’t make it at all. Richard and I hit it off, and Katherine told me he was a terrific guy who used to be married to a friend of hers. When I learned later he was only separated from his wife, she said she hadn’t been aware of that.”

  “That was possible,” I answered honestly. “Allison wouldn’t have been forthcoming with information about the status of her marriage. So maybe Katherine simply felt like fixing the two of you up… that you’d make a good match.”

  Cindy chuckled, but it was without humor. “That would mean she did it for selfless reasons. That simply isn’t possible. She matched us up for her own purposes, probably because she knew we’d wind up hurting each other. Katherine doesn’t believe in doing anything that doesn’t directly lead to her own gain. Nor does she let anybody get in her way.”

  That was an awfully harsh assessment, and my reaction must have registered on my face, for she explained, “Once this other professor challenged her over a research paper she’d written…said she’d gotten her sources wrong. She obsessed over the guy—eventually located some female student he’d had a fling with. That was it, he was gone.”

  She rose. “We’ve been talking too long. It will look suspicious. Please, don’t repeat anything I’ve told you.” She rounded the table, but then bent down and said softly into my ear, “If I were you, I’d watch my step around her. If she finds out you’re asking questions about her behind her back, she’ll find a way to destroy you.”

  Chapter 9

  How Come I Can’t Breathe?

  “Why does Daddy have to go, too?” Nathan whined. He was sitting on the floor of his bedroom, wearing a maize-colored T-shirt and his navy shorts. “Can’t he stay home and watch us?”

  “Because she was a friend of mine. It’s called paying your respects.” I knelt and gave him a hug, forgetting one of the first lessons I’d learned about BC; whenever anyone hugged, she was desperate to join in on it. A flurry of waggy-tail bliss, she leaped onto Nathan’s lap and stuck her cold doggy nose in our faces.

  Nathan complained vehemently, not enjoying puppy claws on his bare legs. His cries immediately brought both Karen and Rachel running into the room to make sure the dog wasn’t being mistreated. This, in turn, caused Nathan to yowl, “Get out of my room! You’re supposed to knock first!”

  Jim was supposedly getting dressed in our bedroom, but when I went back to check on him he was fast asleep on the bed, despite the children’s noisy argument a short distance away. I woke him and said, “Honey? This is ridiculous. You’re not going to the funeral in this condition. People are going to think you’re next. I’m getting you an appointment with our old doctor instead.”

  “There’s no point in my going to the doctor,” Jim wheezed. “He’ll either tell me to stay in bed and drink plenty of fluids, or something else I really don’t want to hear.”

  “There’s a wide enough range between common cold and deathbed that it’s worth taking that chance. Besides, you need to set a good example for our children.” My crabbiness was beginning to show. I’ve long suspe
cted that we are all given a fixed quantity of patience to use throughout our lifetimes; therefore, much of mine is being held in reserve for when Karen and Nathan hit their teens.

  Fortunately, the urgent care clinic at the Boulder Medical Center was open till eight p.m. After some whining and symptom exaggerations on my part, the clinic’s receptionist told me that they could squeeze Jim in as long as he got there soon. Jim assured me he was well enough to drive and wheezed and coughed himself into his car.

  Both Lauren and Tommy wanted to accompany me to the funeral, no doubt in the hopes of keeping me out of trouble.

  But with Jim off to the doctor, it was eventually decided that Lauren and I would go alone in Tommy’s rental car, while Tommy stayed home with all three children. We fought our way through a handful of inane questions from Tommy about childrearing rules but finally made our escape.

  “It’s a shame Jim is so sick,” Lauren said while backing down the driveway.

  “Yeah. Ironic, isn’t it? He comes all this way to protect me and winds up spending his time sick in bed.”

  “Mmm,” she murmured, giving me the impression that her thoughts were elsewhere. She drove us down the Diagonal, a road in which you’re tailgated if you go less than ten miles above the speed limit. “Tommy’s been a single parent for several years since his first wife died, and yet he was all but panicked when we left.”

  “He’s probably not used to taking care of two girls, though. When are his sons due back from camp?”

  “Two more weeks,” Lauren answered. She chewed on her lip, a nervous characteristic of hers, and I suspected it crossed her mind that two weeks from now was also their wedding. If l still hadn’t been given the go-ahead to leave Colorado by then, she’d have to choose another matron of honor.

  “Are you getting nervous about the wedding?”

  “My feet are so cold, my toes have frostbite,” she answered quietly.

  Uh-oh. When things are going badly in my own life, my need for friends to be doing well in theirs becomes all but compulsive. I could advise her to trust her instincts, but which ones? Those that had inspired her to say yes, or those that were causing her trepidation now? Tommy had slowly but solidly joined the ranks of my favorite people. Yet he could annoy me so much that I frequently considered how lucky it was that we weren’t a couple.

  I showed her where to turn, and we pulled into the funeral home. Lauren’s face in profile was a portrait’ of despair, and I could stay silent no longer. “You’re not thinking of canceling the wedding, are you?”

  She yanked the parking brake on with a vengeance. “I try to imagine myself walking down that aisle, and I just don’t think I can go through with it. We’ll see how I feel by the time we get back to Carlton.”

  My chest tightened in alarm. This was going to break Tommy’s heart, and Lauren’s, too. “You two are right for each other, Lauren. Maybe it’s the wedding itself and not the concept of marrying Tommy that’s causing your anxiety.”

  On the verge of tears, she made no comment.

  “Just don’t make any rash decisions. Things are too crazy right now for any of us to think straight.”

  “That’s for sure,” she said in a voice choked with emotion.

  She fidgeted with the contents of her purse to buy time to collect herself. A minute later, she started to open her door, then hesitated and studied my face. “Are you going to be all right?”

  I was so upset at the notion of Tommy and Lauren’s relationship falling apart that it took me an instant to remember what she meant; we were about to attend a funeral of a friend of mine. “I think so.”

  Allison’s death had taken on an almost surreal aspect. In the last twenty-four hours, I’d learned that she’d been a battered spouse and possibly a drug user, that she was aware that her ex-husband had cheated on her with her friend Celia, among others, and that this husband had been murdered almost six months ago. It had become impossible for me to believe that Allison had been anything other than miserable in life.

  Though Lauren and I had arrived just minutes before the service was scheduled to start, the funeral home was almost empty. By all appearances, Allison had passed through this world as a virtual stranger to everyone—the only exception, to my knowledge, being her partner, Joe Cummings. He and a white-haired woman were seated in the middle of the room. An ancient couple, whom I took to be Allison’s parents, sat in the front row. There was nobody else in the seats normally reserved for family. Lauren and I made our way down the center aisle and sat a couple of rows back from Joe and his wife, and near the center aisle.

  Five women—not counting Lauren and me—had the opportunity to have killed Allison. Of these, Nancy Thornton was the first to arrive. She was arm in arm with a short, bald man I assumed was her husband. Nancy’s stature—a full head above his—made her shimmering white hair all the more striking. She was the woman in the group whom I knew the least. Getting to know her better was not going to be easy. As a therapist, she would be used to drawing others out but not revealing herself to virtual strangers.

  Lauren whispered, “I’m under strict instructions from Tommy to keep you away from anyone who was on the retreat with you.”

  Nancy met my eyes and I gestured for her to join us. While Lauren and I moved over, I said under my breath, “You’re not actually going to do what Tommy wants, are you?”

  She chuckled. “No, I’m going to aid and abet you.”

  As soon as Nancy and her husband were seated, I said quietly, “You remember Lauren, don’t you?”

  Characteristically, she waited a beat before saying, “Yes. Hello, Lauren.” She did not introduce her husband but turned her gaze to me and asked, “How are you?”

  “Fine, under the circumstances.” My vision was drawn to a young man with a glorious mane of black hair heading down the side aisle. He took a seat a couple of rows back from Allison’s parents. He was wearing dark glasses that hid his eyes, his lips set in a sneer that I suspected masked a well of emotion.

  I did some quick arithmetic. Allison had been forty, and he appeared to be between the ages of sixteen and twenty. It would not have surprised me if this turned out to be Allison’s son, whom she’d failed to ever mention to me. I gestured with my chin. “Who’s that?”

  “Lois Tucker’s son, Max,” Nancy answered.

  He was surprisingly good looking. I peered at him a second time. He had his mother’s features, and I realized that, though Lois wasn’t an attractive woman, she would have made a handsome man. Bad genetic luck.

  “I didn’t see her come in,” I said, turning to look. A few more mourners had arrived. Celia now sat beside Julie and an elderly man I took to be Julie’s husband. Katherine sat alone in the opposite corner. The only other people behind us were a young couple. They were the two sheriffs, now in plain clothes, who’d been investigating the crime. They were both unabashedly watching me.

  “I doubt we’ll see Lois here,” Nancy said. “Even if she does come, she and her son would never come together. Max hasn’t lived at home for over a year.”

  “I’d gotten the impression that Lois’s husband died a couple of years ago.”

  “He did.”

  “Then where has her son been living?”

  “Until a few weeks ago, Max was living with Allison.”

  “Allison?” I repeated, surprised. Allison lived next door to Lois. That must have been so painful for Lois—her estranged son able to relate to their next-door neighbor, but not to her. Hmm. That could explain some of the bizarre fixation Lois appeared to have had on Allison.

  “He had an apartment in the loft over Allison’s garage, until last month when he graduated from high school. He shares a downtown apartment with some kids his own age now.”

  Nancy’s husband shushed us as the piped-in organ music grew quiet, and a man dressed in a black suit made his way to the podium. The eulogy that followed was embarrassingly short and generic, but Max Tucker and Joe Cummings were in tears throughout. Afterward,
Max all but bolted out the door, then Allison’s parents took positions by the exit. Lauren and I were the last in line, listening as those who proceeded us said the same things—a few words of introduction and condolences as the elderly couple nodded, shook their hands, thanked them for coming. When it was my turn, I shook Allison’s father’s hand. Then I looked into Allison’s mother’s desperate eyes and knew her heartbreak. I wanted to tell her that no parent should ever outlive a child, that somehow I would make sure Allison’s murderer didn’t go unpunished. Yet I heard myself mutter the same lifeless phrases everyone else had. She stopped me, pressed my hand between her parchment-dry hands, and said, “Molly Masters. You used to golf with Allison.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Allie said you could always make her laugh, no matter what. She used to call you her favorite person.”

  Stunned, I could only say, “I really liked Allison.”

  “It’s too bad you moved away.” She started to cry.

  Her husband said, “Let’s go, dear,” and gently took her arm. “Thank you for coming, Molly,” he said to me as he led her outside. I followed, feeling miserable, and yet all the more determined.

  Her parents continued past the other mourners, straight to their car. The male and female officers were standing by a maple tree a few feet away, discreetly keeping an eye on everyone. Max Tucker was in the parking lot, struggling to start the engine on a motorcycle.

  Certain that Celia would have a considerably looser tongue than Nancy’s, I made my way over to where she was standing. To my discomfort and annoyance, she hugged me as if we were the best of friends, mourning the loss of a mutual loved one. Lauren had been in the process of following me, but when she saw Celia’s hug, she turned and started speaking with Nancy.

  The sound of a motorcycle engine as Max sped away made both of us turn. “Darn,” I said. “I was hoping to say something to him.”

  “You know Lois’s son?” Celia asked.